Paris Agreement: What Exactly Have China and U.S. Ratified?

The Paris Climate Agreement, far from securing a reduction in global CO2 emissions, is fundamentally a blank cheque that allows China and India to increase their emissions as they see fit in pursuit of economic growth. Indeed, the Paris Agreement contains a categorical statement that countries such as China and India will not be obliged to undertake any reductions. —Global Warming Policy Foundation

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday outlined new plans for expanding their joint efforts on climate change, showcasing one of the few areas of agreement in an otherwise tense relationship between the two leaders. The formal adoption of the climate-change agreement by the U.S. and China is designed to encourage other nations to formally adopt the Paris pact, helping it enter into force as early as this year. The durability of the U.S. commitments largely hinge on November’s presidential election. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump have taken opposite positions on climate change. –Carol E. Lee and William Mauldin, The Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2016

The EU is shaping up to be a potential stumbling block as countries around the world scramble to make the Paris climate change agreement “Trump-proof” ahead of the US presidential election in November. The European Commission suggested in June that it could in effect ratify on member countries’ behalf, through a European Council decision, rather than waiting for all 28 states to act separately. But a number of countries are understood to be wary of the precedent this could set, preferring to join individually first. Some analysts say this will make it hard for the Paris agreement to take effect this year, even after the expected G20 announcement this weekend by Barack Obama, US president, and Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart. –Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 2 September 2016

Because it is still, inexplicably, classified as a developing country, Paris imposes no obligation, whether legal or moral, on China to reduce its GHG emissions. Even for developed countries, there is nothing legally binding in the Agreement to enforce emission reductions. Effectively, the only parts of the Paris Agreement which are binding concern the requirement to submit new nationally determined contribution every five years, provision of “support” (unquantified) to developing countries, and stocktaking of GHGs every five years. In short, nothing agreed at Paris, whether binding or not, will do anything to reduce global emissions prior to 2030. All it has succeeded in doing is kicking the can down the road for the next 15 years. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 3 September 2016

Motorists are shunning electric cars despite a generous subsidy, leaving MPs with “no confidence” that Britain will meet its climate change targets by the middle of the century. Britain has a legally binding obligation to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. To meet these targets, about 60 per cent of the cars and lorries on the roads must be electric by 2030. But public take-up of the vehicles remains very low — at less than 1 per cent of new car sales — largely because of the lack of charging infrastructure and “range anxiety”, where drivers are worried they will run out of power before reaching a charging station. –Peter Campbell, Financial Times, 1 September 2016

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Amber

Got to keep those save the world conferences going .
China is being classified as a “developing country ” ? WTF are they nuts .
The biggest polluter in the world …a “developing country ” . Something is
seriously wrong here .
Why would the USA or any other country enter into an agreement that will serve to undermine their own economy and effectively increase pollution ?
If a western based country has no labour cost advantage , higher energy costs(because of renewables ) , and much more stringent pollution controls requirements
they are eliminating manufacturing jobs and ultimately the ability of the country to
defend itself .
Why would the Democrat Party sell out the people who are the core strength of the country ? For what, some BS notion they are going to control the earth’s temperature ?
Are these people nuts ?

Aido

It gets even more dodgy. The ‘anomalies’ are differences from a 30-year average, referred to as the ‘norm’.. 1930-1960, then 1960-1990, which is the current ‘norm’. If you took 1940-1970, or 1950-1980 as the ‘norm’, you’d get different figures. How anyone falls for this beats me.

Amber

Ricky C
About 60 million voters would likely agree with you . Some people like to rescue pit bulls to because they figure they can “fix ‘ them .
Donald Trump doesn’t need one of his top enemies buttering up his daughter
to help sell a scary global warming scam .
Gore , Podesta , and Steyer are the best of pals and would love nothing more than to have a direct pipeline into Trump to help bring him down . Stating the obvious ,
they mean him absolutely no good and will do every thing they can to wreck his Presidency one way or the other .
Lets hope Ivanka dedicates her influence and smarts to help real people and solve real problems .
Stein got 1 % of the vote for a reason . The global warming con game is over .

amirlach

Ricky C

She better not. Just like its said, everyone worked very hard, myself particularly to get the waste out of the “Climate Change” feeding trough for consultants who do nothing for the economy. If I want to make sure my medical supplies at a local hospital in third world countries that I visit are modern and effective, their economy has to be booming, not cut down by giving money to international Climate Change hustlers.

JayPee

Dale

I don’t know whether or not Tim Ball actually made the above posting but if so, it’s in very poor taste and severely weakens his potential as a climate authority. Spamming web sites (I’ve seen this several times before on other sites) is not the way to gather interest or respect. People usually ignore such spam and laugh it off as just another fly-by-night.
I’ve read many of Tim Ball’s articles and have heard him speak via video. He has too much to offer to stoop to this low level nonsense, if this posting is indeed from Tim Ball.